


Cold

by tolakasa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 21:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5391554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tolakasa/pseuds/tolakasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were worse ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold

**Author's Note:**

> So, you know how sometimes you're trying to take a perfectly innocent nap and some random character comes up and pokes you and says "Write this now!"? Yeah, that sorta happened.

Dean’s precious Impala sat in the August sunrise, coated with ice as thick as his finger, with the woman’s sadder vehicle next to it. They had been the first to go, oil and gasoline turned to sludge, and all hope of escaping the Wolf had died with them. The woman they were hoping to save had chosen to go to ground where there were no neighbors, where the comforts of life hinged on frail electricity and phone lines, so easily severed by wind or blade.

The cars, at least, might live again, once the Wolf left, if the cold had not left too many parts frozen to brittleness. Perhaps he would have someone fetch the Impala. Polished up, it would serve nicely as a trophy.

Inside, it was dark. The air smelled of cold and smoke—the remnants of a fire, long since frosted over. The Wolf needed no door, but fire frightened it. Fire would have kept it at bay for a time, until finally the cold made fingers and brains numb and there was no one left to feed the flames.

Fire always lost that war.

The woman had died first—perhaps even before the brothers had reached her, if she had not had the wit to start a fire, if she hadn’t realized that the power outage was not simply a power outage, if she hadn’t recognized the incoming cold. Her body lay in a corner, with only a thin sheet—undoubtedly all they could justify sparing—covering it. The rest of the furniture had been moved, closer to the fireplace, even the bookcases—a flimsy barrier meant to try to keep the heat in close.

The Winchesters were no strangers to fighting for survival. He could almost see the scene: their faces falling as they realized the cars were useless against the bitter night, that they were trapped in a house with no heat but a single dark fireplace, that something not quite natural was descending upon this place; the two of them ransacking the trunk and their bags and the house for every scrap of fabric, then scouring the house and yard for anything that would burn. They would have stuffed themselves into as many shirts and jeans and coats as they could and still move, padded sleeping bags with the rest, tucked themselves into a nest of blankets and towels and shared body heat. They would have set their phone alarms to wake them to stoke the fire, never thinking it could get so very cold that the phones, too, would be rendered inoperable.

This was Louisiana, after all.

The salt lines were untouched, but they hadn’t taken time for Devil’s Traps—or perhaps the markers and paint had frozen before they could. Salt was no deterrent to the Wolf, however, and hardly one to him, if he so chose. He scuffed them out of the way with a summoned breeze so that he could investigate the huddle near the dead coals.

He couldn’t tell which of them had gone first. Moose, perhaps; Sam’s head—barely identifiable through the hats and scarves and blankets, except for a stray lock of hair far too long to be Dean’s—leaned against Dean’s shoulder. Or perhaps his mind, fuzzed with the cold, had simply reverted to childhood, when Dean could protect him from anything.

Anything but getting caught between the Wolf and a woman who Hell had decreed must die, a woman who could _only_ die by cold.

Crowley turned and left, feeling the need to stretch his legs in the sunshine. The White Wolf of Winter bounded out into the sunshine behind him, a burst of sub-zero air in its wake, and the Wolf and Juliette frisked in circles around the King of Hell as he walked away.


End file.
